Jean Acker
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| Jean Acker | |
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| Birth name | Harriet Acker |
| Born | October 23, 1893 Trenton, New Jersey, United States |
| Died | August 16, 1978 |
| Spouse(s) | Rudolph Valentino |
Jean Acker (October 23, 1893 – August 16, 1978) was an American film actress with a career dating from the silent film era through the 1950s, though she was perhaps best known as the estranged wife of silent film star Rudolph Valentino.
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[edit] Biography
[edit] Early life
Acker was born Harriet Acker in Trenton, New Jersey and attended school in New Jersey and performed in vaudeville until she moved to California in 1919.[1] Acker, a lesbian, became lovers with Alla Nazimova, a film actress whose clout and contacts enabled Acker to negotiate a $200 per week contract with a movie studio. Acker then also became involved with Grace Darmond [1], who was younger and a comparative novice in film.
[edit] Career
Jean Acker played bit parts in films until the early 1950s and lived with her lesbian partner Chloe Carter in Beverly Hills in a building they co-owned. She died in 1978 at the age of 84, and is buried next to Carter in the Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.
[edit] Personal life
After meeting and befriending the then-struggling actor Rudolph Valentino at a party, they entered a two-month courtship and married on November 6, 1919. Acker quickly had regrets and locked him out of their hotel bedroom on their wedding night. Acker ran to the apartment of her female lover (Grace Darmond) in tears, and the marriage was reportedly never consummated.
After filing for divorce, Valentino did not wait the requisite period for it to be finalized before marrying his second wife, Natacha Rambova, in Mexico, and he was charged with bigamy when the couple returned to the United States. Acker then sued Valentino for the legal right to call herself "Mrs. Rudolph Valentino," and Valentino remained angry at her for several years. They mended their friendship before his death in 1926, and Acker wrote a popular song about him soon after he died called "We Will Meet at the End of the Trail".
[edit] Selected filmography
- It's a Wonderful Life (1946) (uncredited)
- Spellbound (1945) (uncredited)
- San Francisco (1936)
- Brewster's Millions (1921)
[edit] Notes
- ^ Leider, Emily W. Dark Lover: The Life and Death of Rudolph Valentino. New York City, Farrar Straus Giroux, 2003. ISBN 0374282390. p. 100.
